Cotswold Farm Park
Adam Henson's family farm in the hills above Guiting Power, home to more than fifty rare and traditional breeds. If you're travelling with younger children, this is one of the best days out in the Cotswolds, rain or shine.
Adam Henson's family farm in the hills above Guiting Power, home to more than fifty rare and traditional breeds. If you're travelling with younger children, this is one of the best days out in the Cotswolds, rain or shine.
The Henson family have farmed this land since the 1970s, when Joe Henson (Adam's father) began collecting rare breeds that were vanishing from the British countryside. Today the farm is home to Gloucestershire Old Spots, Cotswold Lion sheep, Highland cattle and dozens of other breeds you simply won't see elsewhere. In lambing season (usually February through April) children can bottle-feed the newborns, which is the kind of thing that makes a holiday for a five-year-old. The adventure barn is genuinely good: big enough to tire everyone out on a wet afternoon, with pedal tractors, soft play and a maze of hay bales. Outside there are tractor rides, a wildlife walk and seasonal events that change through the year, from shearing demonstrations in summer to Halloween trails in October.
It's about twenty minutes from the cottage, a lovely drive through the Windrush valley and up into the high wolds. We'd suggest arriving when it opens if you're visiting in school holidays; it does get busy by mid-morning. The cafe is perfectly fine for lunch (burgers, jacket potatoes, that sort of thing) and there's a farm shop at the entrance worth a look on the way out. For older children it may feel a touch young, but anyone under about eight will have an absolute ball.
“Lambing season is the time to go. Watching a three-year-old bottle-feed a lamb for the first time is worth the drive on its own.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.